Baidu's AI chatbot, ERNIE, has amassed over 100 million users since its public debut in August.

Haifeng Wang, Baidu's Chief Technology Officer, shared this news during Wave Summit held in Beijing.

As China's largest internet company, Baidu commands a substantial 76 percent share of the country's internet market, catering to a user base exceeding 705 million in the current year.

Founder Robin Li unveiled ERNIE 4.0 at the Baidu World event, positioning it as an advanced iteration compared to its predecessors, particularly ERNIE 3.5.

Li drew direct comparisons between ERNIE 4.0 and OpenAI's GPT-4 model, asserting its status as the top-performing Chinese Language Model (LLM) based on the SUPERGLUE benchmark.

Integrating Artificial Intelligence

Baidu's broader strategy involves integrating advanced AI into its diverse internet services, and ERNIE Bot plays a pivotal role in this initiative.

With an estimated population of 1.4 billion in China for 2023, ERNIE Bot's 100 million users represent the company's market penetration, potentially reaching 7% of the population.

ERNIE Bot is meant for the Chinese market, since it requires a Chinese-registered phone number for registration.

This localised approach contrasts with the globally accessible ChatGPT, which achieved a similar user milestone two months after its launch.

Baidu's achievements with ERNIE Bot are especially noteworthy, given the complexities posed by local Chinese dialects and Mandarin, necessitating extensive training with Large Language Models (LLMs) due to their intricate syntactic structures.

Going into Blockchain

Beyond AI, the Chinese search giant filed a patent application in September for a "blockchain-based data verification" system tailored for cloud computing and cloud services.

SEE: Baidu's blockchain patent

Baidu's system utilises blockchain in the realm of data security, allowing users to verify the integrity of their data.

Despite being barred from working with cryptocurrency, as crypto transactions and mining were banned in China in September 2021, Baidu appears to believe that it is far from the only way the tech can be put to use.

Baidu appears optimistic about the practical applications of blockchain technology beyond crypto.